New Zealand has missed out on being named the “greatest country on Earth” for the first time in a decade in the UK Telegraph readers’ poll.<\/p>\n
Aotearoa has conquered the poll since 2012, but there is a new champ in town.<\/p>\n
South Africa is the destination which pipped us to the post, with New Zealand taking out second spot in the poll which saw 30,000 people respond in 2023.<\/p>\n
The poll was last conducted in 2019 before the Covid-19 pandemic saw it put on hold for a few years. In that poll South Africa came in fifth place.<\/p>\n
The reason for it surpassing New Zealand is thought to be the easier access Brits now have to the country.<\/p>\n
“You can fly to two South African cities (Johannesburg, Cape Town) directly from the UK, and arrive free of jet-lag due to a near-identical time-zone,” the Telegraph wrote.<\/p>\n
“Your reward for 12 hours in the air is a place of true beauty \u2013 Cape Town a supermodel at the foot of Table Mountain, the Garden Route a ribbon of road-trip nirvana, the wineries of Franschhoek and Stellenbosch crafting fine vintages, the landscape thrilling to the peaks and troughs of the Drakensberg range and Motlatse Canyon, Kruger National Park a roaring wildlife zone.”<\/p>\n
According to the Telegraph the reason for New Zealand losing its iron-tight grip on the top spot was possibly due to the country being “exiled” during the pandemic.<\/p>\n
“Its relative plunge can only, surely, be pinned to the fact that so few of you were able to visit it for so long. Is this the start of a downward trend, or a blip?”<\/p>\n
However, the outlet then went on to list some positives still in play.<\/p>\n
“Marlborough full of wine, Aoraki\/Mount Cook clawing the sky, Milford South a geological marvel. The North is glorious too, Wellington resplendent at the waterside, Lake Taup\u014d at its heart.”<\/p>\n
Top 10: Telegraph Travel Awards \u2013 Best country (2019 rankings in brackets)<\/b><\/p>\n
1. South Africa (5)<\/p>\n
2. New Zealand (1)<\/p>\n
3. Maldives (3)<\/p>\n
4. Japan (2)<\/p>\n
5. Australia (8)<\/p>\n
6. Italy (10)<\/p>\n
7. Kenya (21)<\/p>\n
8. India (15)<\/p>\n
9. Costa Rica (11)<\/p>\n
10. Botswana (6)<\/p>\n
Source: 1 news<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
New Zealand has missed out on being named the “greatest country on Earth” for the first time in a decade in the UK Telegraph readers’ poll. Aotearoa has conquered the poll since 2012, but there is a new champ in town. South Africa is the destination which pipped us to the post, with New Zealand […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":6392,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[174],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nz-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6391","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6391"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6391\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6393,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6391\/revisions\/6393"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6392"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}